Piety of the Tomcat
by rhoanwritesthings
Summary: It seems he only loves you under the cover of night. Your Alexander is not a cautious man, but you both know it's safer to love her than you and though you wish no harm to come to him, it still stings.


**Piety of the Tomcat**

To you,

He has always been Alexander

From the day you met him in that tavern

On that street

His clothes smelling of books and knowledge,

Peach fuzz on his face and Caribbean sand in his pockets.

His eyes looked like the calm before the hurricane

His mind some impregnable fortress

Must've been some avatar of a deity of intelligence,

And oh you remember he walked like the mangy cats in alleyways

Guarded and wily,

And some sort of feral

You do not expect a force of nature to love you back, but

You knew from the moment you locked eyes

He was no title to you, no "Hamilton, sir";

This hurricane personified

Was your Alexander. 

The first time you address him by his first name

He draws back in surprise

This, after all, is an intimacy shared by lovers

In the warm dark of the night.

And though he does not protest

And your innocent eyes still believed those perfect lips built bridges, not walls

You can tell it phases him.

So you grin: you have caught the attention of the hurricane personified, you have

Stilled his raging movement, brought him to a halt,

You have said

" _Goodnight, Alexander"_

And it's funny because it's not your first step towards romance; why,

Just earlier that night you found yourselves in the corner of the pub, your

Fingers tangling and hipbones brushing and his face too close to yours

In the carriage ride home he leaned his head against your shoulder, but it's

"Goodnight, Alexander,"

That made him pay attention

And in the warm dark of night you could have sworn he was going to fold his body into yours, so

It hit you with a pang when he draws back and instead says, "Goodnight, Laurens." 

And you'll always be Laurens to him

Close comrade and affectionate touches but nothing more,

Never John except in the warm dark of night when the camp is sleeping and the air is still—

Then he stirs it up. Fever rising,

His hands running over your body,

 _(John)_

Fingers grasping, grabbing, hair mussed and

 _(John)_

His mouth on yours and

 _(John)_

He whispers your name like sinners sing hallelujah.

John, John,

Stay with me

Blankets tangled around intertwined legs, he says

 _John_

In the dead of night when virtue falls asleep, but

In the morning—

He's gone from your tent,

And he's gone from your bed

His hair is pulled back neatly, clothes crisp and clean

"Laurens," he greets you pleasantly

And you smile back to cover the fact that it smarts

That you'll never get the privilege of pet names in the light of day

You are confined to the space inside your uniform;

You push against your boundaries, blinking a bit too fast

" _Alexander_ ," you reply

And it stings.

You've been linking fingers and trading breath in secret for months now

And you swear it's alright that you give and give

When Alexander seems only to take because sometimes _(all the time)_

He gifts you with fleeting kisses and intellectual conversations and late nights writing essays

The hurricane has never looked more alive than with a quill in his hand and it's enough for you, you swear 

But sometimes you remember that Winter's Ball.

The woman in the sapphire dress

Lighter and more breathable than your deep blue uniform

Her onyx eyes

In his letters to you he gushes about them

He calls her his Mistress, his lady

His Elizabeth

And you think as much as you wish he would call you John in the light of day as you call him Alexander

That would be preferable to the way he sings her name now when he used to breathe yours

 _Eliza!_ he hums happily,

 _E-liza!_

It's at camp when he tells you

Your head against his chest, his voice

Humming in his ribcage

And the crack of British cannons doesn't compare to your deafening silence

He ducks his head, slightly excited and guilty because of it, carefully explains how

 _Eliza_

Is to be his wife, his

 _Eliza_

Forevermore; he opens his bed to you on his wedding night but

 _Eliza_

Refuses and you attend his wedding,

The best man, you lead a toast to the bride and her groom and

Share a melancholy glance with the maid of honor, because you're both putting on a show

You think there should be a special drinking song for this kind of misery:

It'd be called, A Wedding for the Tomcat. 

And perhaps you shouldn't have come to this celebration.

Because now you have to watch him dance with her, prance with her

Watch their bodies fitting together perfectly

Sit through the way he sings her name while you got murmur in humid Virginian summers

How he wraps himself in her like he never did to you

And maybe it's why this hurts so much:

It's glaringly obvious that

 _John_ is a sin, a confession, a dirty little secret that if discovered would get them both hung,

It would destroy his reputation and sully his legacy while _Eliza_ is his ticket out and up;

Your Alexander is not a cautious man but you both know it's safer to love her instead of you

Your Alexander is not a wholly religious man, but he whispered your name like a sinner in church

While hers

Was always the hallelujah.

* * *

 _Author's Note: I don't own Hamilton. And yeah, I know Ham probably only calls Laurens "John" because there are multiple Johns in the play and "Laurens" fits better with the rhythm of the lyrics, but it was an interesting topic to explore._


End file.
